Slavelj appeared to shrivel a bit and looked guiltily away from the crucifix. He said, “I was Jewish before I was a vampire. There’s no reason for that device to thwart me.”
“Yet it does,” Blake said, smiling down at the plastic Christ-on-a-Cross which was in four different shades of glow-brite orange. His pin gun was the best model, an expensive piece of equipment. But he did not believe in toting around a hand-crafted crucifix when any old hunk of junk would do. He said, “Studies have been done which show that you people fear this only on a psychological level. Physically, it has no effect. Yet, because you get your power from the mythos of vampirism, and because the cross plays such a strong part in that mythos, you really would die if you came into contact with this—if a spirit can be said to die.”
As the detective spoke, Slavek began a strange transformation. His cape appeared to mold closer to his body and to alter, by slow degrees, into a taut brown membrane. The Count’s features changed, too, growing darker and less human. Already, he had begun to shrink, his clothes miraculously shrinking with him and dissolving into him as he strove to attain the form of a bat.
“That’ll do you no good,” Jessie said. “Even if you escape out the window, we know who you are. We can have you subpoenaed in twenty-four hours. Besides, Brutus can trail you wherever you go.”
The Count hesitated in his metamorphosis. “Brutus?”
Blake motioned toward the closet where a powerful hound, four and a half feet high at the shoulders, strode out of the closet Its head was massive, its snout long and crammed with sharp teeth. Its eyes were an unsettling shade of red with tiny, black pupils.
“A hell hound?” Slavek asked.
“Of course,” Brutus said.
Mrs. Cuyler seemed shocked to hear a deep, masculine voice coming from the beast, but neither Count Slavek nor Jessie found it odd.
“Brutus can follow you into any little nether-world cul-de-sac you may intend to flee to,” Blake said.
The Count nodded reluctantly and reversed his transformation, became more human again. “You work together, man and spirit?”
“Quite effectively,” Brutus said.
He held his burly head low between his shoulders, as if he were prepared to leap after the Count if he should make the slightest move to escape.
“An unbeatable combination,” Slavek said, admiringly. He sighed and walked to the sofa, sat down, crossed his legs, folded his pale hands in his lap, and said, “What do you want of me?”
“You’ve got to hear my client’s ultimatum, and then you can leave.”
“I’m listening,” Slavek said.
He had begun to buff his nails on the hem of his cape.
Mrs. Cuyler, bewildered, still stood in the center of the room, crying, her small hands fisted at her sides as if the tears would soon turn to screams of rage.
Jessie said, “You’ve been caught in an illegally executed bite, and you will remain susceptible to prosecution for seven years. Unless you want Mr. Roger Cuyler—my client and this lady’s husband—to initiate that prosecution, you will henceforth have nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Cuyler. You will neither contact her in person, by telephone, by viewphone or by messenger. Neither will you employ supernatural methods of communication where this lady is concerned.”
Slavek looked longingly at the leggy young woman and finally nodded. “I accept these conditions, naturally.”
“Be off, then,” Jessie said.
At the door of the suite, Slavek turned back to them and said, “I think it was much better when we kept to ourselves, when you people didn’t even know, for sure, that we existed.”
“Progress,” Blake said, with a shrug.
“I mean,” Slavek said, “there’s much less risk of a stake through the heart nowadays—now that we understand each other—but the romanticism is gone. Blake, they’ve taken away the thrill!”
“Take it up with city hall,” Brutus said. He wasn’t in the best of moods today.
“It’s seven years now since my land of people entered real commerce with your kind—and things get worse every day. I don’t think we’ll ever like it the way it is now.” Slavek had taken on the brooding tone that so many middle-European bloodsuckers adopted when in a musing mood.